BA explains reasons for flight chaos

British Airways operates full flight schedule from Tuesday
British Airways is operating a full flight schedule for the first time since an IT failure forced the cancellations of thousands of flights over the weekend.
BA chief executive Alex Cruz blamed a power surge for the chaos, which affected 75,000 people. He said he did not believe it was not the result of hacking. The timing was terrible for the airline, as it occurred throughout a busy bank holiday weekend in the UK.
“Our IT systems are now back up and running and we will be operating a full flight schedule at Heathrow and Gatwick,” the airline said. But it “may take some time” to return thousands of bags to travellers.
In his first interview since the failure, Cruz told the BBC: “There was a power surge and there was a back-up system, which did not work at that particular point in time.” This hit “all the operating of our systems – baggage, operations, power processing.”
The hardware problem was restored “after a few hours”, he said, but the knock-on effect lasted for three days. Unions have blamed the crisis on IT staff being outsourced from the UK to India, something Cruz denies.
The focus will now be on the financial impact on the airline. One analyst estimates the cost of cancelling a single day’s operations at around £30 million (€35 million).
Cruz told the BBC he would not resign and repeated his apology to the 75,000 passengers affected at 170 airports in 70 countries.BBC